Pendant mask; hip ornament; lost-wax cast in brass. In form of human face with openwork beaded headdress and beaded udaeha band across forehead. Flat semi-circular flange below chin with stylised mudfish in relief. Incised eyebrows and nose panel. Large suspension loop at top on reverse. Final stage in lost-wax brass casting series showing manufacture of pendant mask.
Major Percy Powell-Cotton travelled to Benin City at the start of his second expeditionto French Equatorial Africa in January 1931. While there he visited the brass casters and filmed the process of lost-wax casting. It appears that Major Powell-Cotton subsequently commissioned two series of lost-wax castings via the shipping agents Holt's or possibly through the Resident in Benin City, Harry Maddocks. This set Af1932,1205.1-7 was donated to the Museum in 1932; the other set (acc.nos. ETH CAM2.955-971) remains at the Powell-Cotton Museum in Birchington-on-Sea, Kent.
Exhibited: 1970-1973, London, Museum of Mankind, Divine Kingship in Africa 1991 Feb-Apr, Norwich, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Man and Metal in Ancient Nigeria